BOULDER -- Boulder County planning commissioners agreed Wednesday to continue considering whether wineries should be permitted in agricultural and unsubdivided rural-residential zoning districts in unincorporated areas of the county.

Boulder County's Land Use Code, which lists the potential uses of properties outside the boundaries of the county's cities and towns, now treats winemaking as a kind of industry and only allows wineries in general industrial and light industrial districts.

For nearly a year, however, the owners of several wineries -- including some inside the city of Boulder -- have been lobbying county officials for Land Use Code amendments that would allow them or others to locate their wine-making facilities and tasting rooms in more pastoral settings, such as in agricultural zoning districts.

Those would be areas, county staff planner Abby Shannon has written the Planning Commission, that "better fit the image of a winery."

Shannon said in a memo to the planning panel members that though Boulder County staffers "understand the position of the local wineries and their desire to take advantage of pastoral unincorporated Boulder County," the staff isn't recommending adoption of a special winery classification that property owners could use to apply to establish such businesses in agricultural zoning districts.

Disagreeing with that county staff position were such wine business people as John Garlich, co-owner of BookCliff Vineyards and Winery, and Jackie Thompson, owner of the Boulder Creek Winery.

Advertisement

Garlich said Boulder County is one of the few places in the country that requires wineries to be located in industrial zones. He said allowing wineries in the countryside would give the county an opportunity to create a new kind of agricultural business in those areas and give the owners the chance "to have a business that could be something other than a hobby."

Ulla Garlich, John Garlich's wife, had written Shannon last week that "wineries in Boulder County would be a welcome and complementary addition to the existing vibrant hospitality and restaurant industry in Boulder," but "have you ever been invited to tour a winery in an industrial park?"

Thompson said wineries could promote "agri-tourism," attracting both the curious and connoisseurs to such facilities, especially if the wineries were in rural locations flanked by even small vineyards.

Thompson's point was seconded by Mary Ann Mahoney, executive director of the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau, who said: "We want to really stake our claim" that Boulder County is the area for people to visit to see how food and beverages are grown and produced locally.

Shannon, however, said in her memo that the Land Use Department staff "is concerned with creating special provisions allowing wineries to locate in rural areas. Why not cheese, beer, burritos, textiles, or any sort of small manufacturing industry?"

Several planning commissioners indicated qualms about allowing a commercial or industrial enterprise such as a winery to locate in an agricultural zone, particularly since the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan tries to direct such business land uses into municipalities or have them locate in existing unincorporated county industrial or commercial zoning districts.

Planning panelists decided to resume their discussion at a meeting set for Dec. 19. That meeting is to include consideration of a number of proposed changes to Boulder County's Land Use Code.

Local duo joining overseas exhibition excursionFilippo Swartz went to Italy, where his mother was born and he spent the first year or so of his life, every summer until he had to stick around to be a part of summer football activities for the Longmont High School team. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
Full Story